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Cover of Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Hard Times

Charles Dickens

  • 326 pages · about 5 hours
  • First published 1854
  • 1,028 editions
  • Free to read
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1 About this book

Dickens scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy, Hard Times features schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, one of his most richly dimensional, memorable characters. Filled with the details and wonders of small-town life, it is also a daring novel of ideas and ultimately, a celebration of love, hope, and limitless possibilities of the imagination.

  • Industrial revolution
  • Political
  • Family life
  • Domestic fiction
  • Political fiction
  • Social science
  • Psychology
  • Social problems

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3 About Charles Dickens

1812–1870

Charles John Huffam Dickens ( ; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and journalist. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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